Doctor Who spinoff  Episode one: One Long day
by writer's best friend
Summary: A timelord finds himself in the wild west with no knowledge of how he got there, or why his face is on the local wanted posters.


He pushed himself off the ground. Dirt clung to clothes that were too big for his slender frame. The man's hands shot up to his head and began to probe around. He mentally ticked off details.

It was somewhat long but not quite down to his shoulders, the color was a deep auburn. He pushed the hair back over his head and felt around his face. There were two eyes, a nose, and two ears. Everything was where it should be.

Satisfied with the cursory check he looked around to get a feel for his surroundings. The place was somewhat barren, save for some brush. On the distance there were a few shapes. They were moving toward him at a decent speed.

He cupped his hands over his eyes and looked hard. He knew what was coming toward him, it just wasn't clicking. Too soon to really use the brain. He stood for another moment before his eyes widened in recognition. People riding horses were heading his way. With a smile he looked around and picked out a rock. He stepped carefully over to it and sat down to wait.

When the riders got within earshot the man stood and shouted to them. His voice was about mid range and smooth. He liked it. The riders slowed to a trot and rode over to him. They were a simple bunch. Each was wearing a wide brimmed hat and carried a revolver. Their legs were either adorned with simple pants or chaps. One man wore a large duster.

"What you callin' us over here for mister?" The man in the duster asked. His horse danced from side to side, eager to move. The man's eyes shifted over his face. His companions hung back.

"I was just wondering if you all could tell me where I am." He took another look at the group and tried to give an educated guess as to the era. He was stumped.

"You don't know where you are? And how come?"

"Good question." He reached into his brain for an answer. He would need a time appropriate excuse. He was around men on horseback and sporting large hats. They spoke with an American accent. He snuck a look at one of the men's revolvers. It was a late nineteenth century, colt. A good indicator of era. "Hate to say it but I was robbed about two days back. I've been wandering, trying to hit a town. Thought you gentlemen could point me in the right direction."

He studied the area a little more while the man thought over his story. There was an eerie calm to the place. No snakes or lizards were flashing by, and no birds were anywhere to be heard. The horses and the men were subdued. Strange even by his standards.

"Well," The duster man shifted in his saddle "You look like you been through hell. Jimmy here'll take you over to town." The man in the duster gave him a strange smile and trotted off.

"Thank you." His gaze slid over the men until one inclined his head. "And what town would this be?"

"Dodge City."

"Ah." The man said as he pulled himself up onto Jimmy's saddle. "Good old Dodge."

Dodge hadn't been too far away. After only a few minutes of riding they had already hit the outskirts of town. The man leaned back a little from his new companion and stretched.

"Why is everything so still here?" He asked.

"Well it's about one in the mornin'." Jimmy responded, his voice low.

"One in the morning? But the sun is out."

"Yeah." Jimmy sat a little straighter in his saddle. "Haven't had the sun go down in about a week. It's that way for about ten miles out in any direction."

"That's interesting."

The man hopped off Jimmy's horse and started walking towards the buildings in front of him. He waved goodbye and kept moving. Jimmy's words had struck a chord with him. No night time for a week. In nineteenth century Kansas that wasn't supposed to happen. Something was desperately wrong.

He passed by some basic shops and a stable with some very ragged looking horses in it. The windows in all of the buildings he could see were shuttered or draped over, presumably to shut out the light.

The man continued on until he reached a combination bar/hotel and stepped through the doors. Inside the room was fairly clean. Just past the doors was a board with wanted posters hanging up. There were raggedy looking men on it, and one peculiar looking man who seemed to be in good spirits. A few patrons hung around at the bar or at tables. There was a group of people playing cards off in the far corner of the room.

The man rubbed his nose and thought to himself. What in the world could he do? He could simply ask around about the whole night thing. He could look for an answer on his own, but any advanced technology was nowhere to be found. At least, nowhere he could remember. He furrowed his eyebrows and turned around, so that the bar couldn't see him.

"What is my problem?" He whispered to himself. "My brain has gone to mush. I have all this general knowledge but no idea how I got here, what I'm supposed to be doing or even who I am. This is awful." He sighed and started tapping his index finger into his palm. He stopped for a second with a look of surprise and then resumed. "New nervous twitch, that's interesting."

The man heard footsteps behind him and turned around to see someone coming toward him. It was an averaged height man; he had short hair and a thick mustache. He wore a suit and a gold chain hung from one of the inside pockets. He stopped a few feet away and swung a watch on the gold chain into his hand and looked at it, then back to the man.

"What brings you in here so late?" The mustachioed man asked.

"Not anywhere else to go is there?" He stepped closer to the man with the mustache and looked him over. He circled the man and came to another stop in front of him. "Have I seen you somewhere before?"

"Can't say you have, and I can't say I've seen you before either."

"I just got into town."

"In that case, let me introduce myself." The mustachioed man drew himself up a little taller. "Name's Wyatt Earp. I'm an Assistant Marshall. And if you want to stir up trouble you better head on out."

"Wyatt Earp!" The man slapped his hands together and laughed. "I've always wanted to meet you!"

"You been drinking?"

"No, no." The man calmed himself down and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a little wallet and looked at it. It was ordinary enough, but once he looked inside he found a delight: psychic paper. "Tom McLeary. Federal Marshall. I'm looking into your night time problem." He held up the paper and waited until Wyatt had moved his gaze away from the paper up to his face.

"Well, that's interesting." Wyatt said as he slid a revolver from under his jacket. "Did you kill Mr. McLeary or just steal his badge?"

"What are you talking about?"

Wyatt spun him around and tied his hands together. Then he pulled him in front of the board with the wanted posters. He pointed a clean and trimmed finger at the poster of the poster with the smiling man on it.

"Seems you don't know your own face." He growled.

"Great." The Man mumbled to himself. "Wanted posters already and I didn't even know what I looked like!"

Wyatt escorted him out of the bar and down the street to a small building. Inside was an older man reading a newspaper at a desk and a small barred cell. The Man was shoved in and then his hands were untied through the bars.

Wyatt and the older man took a seat at a table near the door. They settled into a conversation.

"What can you tell me about what's going on?" The Man asked.

"You should know." Wyatt grumbled. "You're wanted for doing this whole daytime thing."

"How could I have done that? Did anyone see me?"

"Someone must've."

"Has anything else unusual happened lately?" The Man racked his brain for a name of someone who might want to frame him. While he wasn't sure if he did do it, he had the feeling he wasn't involved.

"We found a yellow rock in a big hole just outside of town. Looked like it had fallen from the sky; one of them meteorites. I'm sure a scientist would know what to make of it, but I don't know much about that kinda thing."

"Yellow rock." The man turned it over in his mind. "Can I see it?"

"Yep. We'll have to ride out there though. Hopefully you have a horse." Wyatt teased

"Oh. Can I borrow one?"

Wyatt and his older companion laughed.

"Sure. I'll see what I can do." Wyatt said.

"I'm being serious." The Man replied. "Who says I'm to blame, and your 'yellow rock' isn't?"

"How the hell could a rock stop the sun going down?" Wyatt spat.

"How could a man stop the sun going down?"

Wyatt didn't respond.

After an hour the older man left. Wyatt turned his chair to face The Man and looked him deep in the eyes. He stayed that way for a second and then leaned forward. He was about to open his mouth when the older man ran back in and nearly toppled him over the chair.

"What the hell is your problem?" Wyatt shouted.

"You gotta come out here and look at this!" The old man crowed.

Wyatt got up and went outside then came back in, his face white and his eyes wide. The sat back down in his chair and stared at the old man, then looked back to the Man.

"What's out there?" The Man asked.

"Big thing, in the sky. Looks like a giant fishing net."

"You have to let me out of here, someone is framing me and that net can't be a good thing!" The Man shouted.

"If you didn't do this why would anyone try to get you locked up?" Wyatt asked in a monotone.

"Good question." The Man began tapping his palm. "Perhaps I was getting in someone's way. Stopping them from doing something and they needed me out of the picture."

"Would be convenient." Wyatt remarked. "But I don't get what would be that important."

"Oh, who knows? Could be anything really." The Man's tapping became quicker. "Really I think the rest of it is locked in my memory, but I just can't remember. What was I doing before I got killed? Hmm…"

"Killed?"

"Well, sort of." The Man replied with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Whatever it is it must be worth money." Wyatt supplied.

"Money…money…" The Man cursed his slow brain. He'd been ridiculed for it before, he knew that much. "Something worth money. And you found a yellow rock?"

"Yep. Yellow rock."

"Who uses yellow rocks?" The Man wondered. "If we are talking about yellow crystals, the Minothians use them as short range vehicles. And a few other races use yellow crystals for power supplies." The Man sighed. He just didn't know.

"Think you're still up for takin' a look at it?" Wyatt asked.

"Of course!"

Wyatt picked their horses and headed out of town. The ride was a jagged thing and The Man couldn't stand the feeling of the manacles on his wrists. He also felt humiliated that Wyatt insisted on leading his horse. It really wasn't fair as far as he was concerned.

As they approached the crater The Man took an estimate of the size. About three meters across. So nothing terribly huge had fallen there, just a little something. He wished that the little things weren't so often something to be scared of.

When they were at the edge of the crater the men dismounted and walked all the way up to the center. There sat a yellow crystal, about the size of a softball. It seemed to glow, pulsating rhythmically. The Man swooped down next to it and looked it over.

"I'd say go ahead and pick it up." Wyatt said over his shoulder. He was looking better, having regained his color and had a fierce look in his eye. "But nobody can get the thing out of the ground."

"That's because it's in the ground Wyatt." The Man said. He ran his hand over the surface of the crystal and looked it over again. "I don't think I want to know what this is doing here."

He found a slight line and followed it around the top of the crystal. It appeared to stop somewhere near the back. With a gentle hand he knocked at the top. When nothing happened he probed around with his fingers. When he felt little depression he pushed down.

A second passed and then a metallic whirring started in the crystal. It got louder and then a sharp click sounded. The top of the crystal lifted back to reveal a small panel with basic readouts. There was a timer winding down, it showed that there was a minute and a half until something happened. The Man looked hard at it until the name for it clicked.

"That's not good." He mumbled.

"What's not good?" Wyatt's voice came across sharp and angry.

"This. Do you have any idea what this is?" He took Wyatt's silence as a 'no.' "This is a Minothian core probe. It hits the ground and a long tube is inserted into the core of a planet. Once it's there the tube starts funneling various explosives into the core. Provided the probe has enough power, once that timer goes off it's goodbye earth. That net up there is meant to capture all the precious metal that comes flying out"

"What does it, ah, use for power?" Wyatt's voice quavered a little. Uncertainty and a little fear written all over it.

"Power?... ultraviolet light. That's why there hasn't been any nighttime for a while; this ship draws in sunlight like a magnet pulls in iron. Can't help it."

"You're lying to me." Wyatt moved off and started pacing. "There ain't no way! You rigged this thing up to look like some crazy bomb didn't you?"

"Ha! If I did that I would be nowhere near here. This thing is dangerous." The Man shot up and leaned over the Minothian probe. "How much power do you have left?"

The Man sat down and looked at the timer. It was down to forty seconds. He pulled in a deep breath then looked back at Wyatt.

"I'm going to pull the panel off of this and try to rewire it. Could you keep an eye on the timer? "

Wyatt came over and sat down next to The Man. The Man pried off the top panel and handed it to him.

"The wiring in here looks relatively simple" He said.

He looked through and plucked at a few of the wires. He had to do things from memory, and this wasn't going so well.

"You having trouble?" Wyatt's voice was definitely quavering now.

"No. Just a Minothian probe, should be easy. Now what's that song again?" The Man asked. "Ah, ok! Minothian probe, Minothian probe, the green wire makes you explode. Minothian probe, Minothian probe, the red wire makes you explode."

"Not a very clever song." Wyatt cut in.

"Minothian probe, Minothian probe, the white wire makes you explode. Minothian probe, Minothian probe, cut the black wire and you're gold!" The Man finished with a flourish and pulled the black wire out of the panel.

The probe whirred again, and The Man picked it up off of the ground. It was just a yellow crystalline ball now, the probe having been retracted. He smiled at Wyatt and looked back up at the net. It was receeding.

"Well, that was easy enough." He laughed.

The Man faced forward again and his laughing stopped. They were now aboard a ship. The inside was simple, with large grey walls. A few Minothians stood around. Their heads were shaped like triangles, and their eyes were red. Shark like teeth protruded from their mouths.

"Oh, well hello." The Man called cheerily.

"You." A large Minothian stepped out of the crowd and up to The Man.

"Yep. Me."

"Give the probe to me." It hissed.

"And why would I do that?" The Man mused. "You'll just send it back down to the surface and blow the planet."

"It is none of your concern."

"It's my concern alright! It was one of you who killed me wasn't it?"

The Minothians shuffled around and the one in front of The Man laughed.

"Yes I killed you." He breathed.

"Guess I better return the favor then huh?"

The Man shoved the black wire back into place on the probe and rammed the bottom onto the floor of the ship. Its probe extended, sending a scraping noise out as it went through the metal.

"Idiot!" The Minothian cried. It reached for The Man's neck, but a loud shot rang out before it could touch him. The Minothian reeled back, a bullet hole in its chest.

The Man looked back to discover Wyatt had been brought on board with him. The man was visibly shaking but the revolver in his hand was steady as stone. The other Minothians scattered, all of them afraid to be hit with a bullet.

"Thanks." The Man muttered. He rushed up to one of the walls and kicked the bottom panel. A control board slid out of the wall at waist height. He hit a few buttons and then looked at Wyatt. "Hold on." He said.

The next second they were back at the crater. Wyatt still stood behind him and night had taken over the landscape. Things were actually as they should be, and the Minothians definitely wouldn't be trying that again. He breathed a sigh of contentment.

A burning sensation in his pocket broke his reverie. He reached down and pulled out the source of the heat. It was a small oblong thing, like a car remote.

He pushed a button. After a second a whirring sound started, and a rock began to appear from out of nowhere. The scratchy "whoosh, whoosh" was music to his ears. The rock became solid and he bolted over to it. He hit another button on the remote and a gap appeared in the rock. He entered.

The inside was huge, and perfectly suited to be his home. There was a central control system that presented itself as a column. The inside of that column had what could only be described as a piston. At the base was a single set of controls. And off to the right were a set of stairs.

The Man walked over to a panel in the wall and moved it. Inside were various items, personal treasures that he vaguely remembered putting there. He pulled out a few little items and a personal favorite of his, the non-functioning sonic revolver. The piece still sat in a leather holster that was attached to a belt. He'd broken it quite a while ago but kept it for old time sake. He threw the belt on and stuffed the items into his pocket. He then turned and went out the door. Once out of the ship, his own personal TARDIS, he nearly skipped over to Wyatt and handed him one of the items out of his pocket. A set of poker cards, which may or may not have had chips implanted to make sure the owner of the deck always won.

"You can have these." He said with a smile.

Wyatt took the cards and nodded. He gathered up the horses and came back to take off The man's manacles. He stopped short when he realized they weren't there anymore and shook his head.

"You aren't from here are you?" Wyatt asked.

"Nope. Long way away actually."

"Suppose I owe you thanks for fixing the night day thing. And should be asking you exactly when you took off the irons." Wyatt pushed at the dirt with his feet. "But all I'm gonna say is my nerves are shot. That was straight out of the loony bin."

"Perhaps it was. A little alien life trying to destroy the planet can be very confusing." The Man replied. "Maybe I can make a little 'rehabilitation' suggestion?"

"Couldn't hurt to." Wyatt shrugged.

"Take some time off. I hear you are a gambling man, and Texas has some good poker." The Man tried to incline his head down towards the deck of cards and hoped Wyatt got the hint.

"Hmm." Wyatt thought it over. "Not a bad idea."

The Man smiled and patted him on the arm. Then he opened the door to his TARDIS. He walked to the door and looked back. Wyatt was already on his horse and had the other one's reigns tied to the saddle. The two men nodded to each-other. The Man stepped into his ship and looked around. A small smile punctuated his features as he walked over to the controls.

He flicked a switch and looked back up and the piston began to work.

"Let's see where you land me on random." He said. "And I need to change clothes."

With that the man walked off, listening to the scratchy whir that he loved so much.


End file.
